Historical highlights

A few historical highlights

The local legend has it that an engineer named Morin came to explore this area of the Laurentians and hired a guide by the name of Simon, a native from Oka. The town and the river at the heart of the village would respectively bear their names.

In reality, Augustin-Norbert Morin (1803-1865), deputy (1830-1854), Minister and land commissioner (1842-1843), founder of the newspaper La Minerve (1826) and Superior Court Judge (1855-1859) bought 1600 hectares of land in the Abercromby township where he built a house, wood-cutting and flour mills, thus contributing to the development of the region. By 1852, the name Morin was extended to the entire township, which included at the time Morin-Heights, Val-Morin and Ste-Adèle.

The township was incorporated as a municipality in 1855. The English pioneers of Irish origin came from Lachute and Wentworth. The pioneers of francophone descendants arrived from St-Jérôme and St-Eustache.

The impact of the coexistence of two origins of settlers, who were to develop and build the municipality, has perpetuated and remains to this day.

The name of Morin Flats was first given to the portion which extends to the river bank, but in 1896 the village formally acquired the name of Morin Heights when the railroad company, through the colonization of Montfort, connected the municipality with Montreal.

A section of this railroad track has today become the very popular bicycle path and cross-country ski trail known as the Corridor Aérobique.